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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26479441">waiting in the dark.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberwoods/pseuds/amberwoods'>amberwoods</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Historical, Captivity, F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture, Patronus Charm (Harry Potter), Rated For Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:09:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,669</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26479441</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/amberwoods/pseuds/amberwoods</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“We have an unexpected guest,” the lady of the house informed her. </p><p>Andromeda's parents are part of a political movement trying to get Lord Marvolo into power by any means necessary. Sometimes, they take prisoners. It's Andromeda's job to take care of them. </p><p>However, something is different about the latest unexpected guest. And he might just change Andromeda's entire life.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Andromeda Black Tonks/Ted Tonks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>waiting in the dark.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey guys! This one was written for a prompt by one of my friends again. The prompt was to write something inspired by a quote. The quote I chose was this one: </p><p>I waited in the dark for something not quite human—and all too human—to begin.<br/>- Zadie Smith, from “Windows on the Will,” published c. March 2016</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As always, her mother was very matter-of-fact about it.</p><p>She stopped Andromeda in the darkened hallway. It was a little past seven in the midst of winter. The candlelight coming from the sconces on the wall made the lines of her face look almost soft.</p><p>It was such a misleading beauty. Druella Black was anything but soft.</p><p>“We have an unexpected guest,” the lady of the house informed her. She looked over her second daughter with a cold, shrewd gaze.</p><p>Andromeda felt a familiar weight settle in her stomach. She fought to keep her expression neutral as despondency overtook her.</p><p>Her mother noticed anyway. Her expression shifted to one of clear disapproval. Andromeda was a constant disappointment to her.</p><p>“He will be in your care,” she said, turning away from her daughter already to continue her path through the mansion, “Since your sisters are occupied.”</p><p>Occupied. Of course.</p><p>“Yes, mother,” she droned. Her eyes were on one of the sconces. The candlelight moved gently across the wall. It seemed fitting that the softest thing in this house could still raze the building.</p><p>The lady of the house scoffed and turned her back on her. Her footsteps receded, until Andromeda was left alone in the hall, staring at the fire. She stood there until her eyes started to burn.</p><p>Once upon a time, Druella Black had carried her growing body inside of her womb for nine months. There had been an unyielding connection between the two of them. She had sat where her mother sat. Stood where her mother stood.</p><p>How could you hate something you carried for nine months?</p><p>Andromeda collected herself and left the hallway.</p><p>She had been on her way to the library to spend some hours reading the new poetry collection she had bought herself earlier that week. Instead, she now turned away from the first floor, making her way downstairs to the servants’ quarters and, after that, even deeper, into the very bowels of the mansion, where the air was cold and damp and the stone was hard and unforgiving.</p><p>Her sisters were occupied. The truth was that Bellatrix wouldn’t be able to restrain herself, and their guest would never again see the light of day. Narcissa would simply forget that he existed and let him waste away. In the end, this job always fell to Andromeda.</p><p><em>Do your part,</em> they told her. <em>We ask next to nothing of you. You sit around all day reading your books and wasting the air. At the very least, do your part for this family. After all we’ve done for you.</em></p><p>She took the last winding staircase down to the very bottom of the building. It was dark here, but she didn’t want to bring the softness of candlelight down into this place. Instead, she waited until her eyes adjusted to the darkness before continuing on.</p><p>There were two doors in the cellar, one open and one closed. Between them stood a wooden box.</p><p>Andromeda stared at the closed door for a moment and then opened the box, taking out some clean bandages and dried meat. She closed the box softly, trying to limit the sounds she made in the quiet space. However, when she reached into her pocket to pull out a ring of keys and carefully opened the door, the person inside the room was waiting for her.</p><p>Their unexpected guest had intelligent eyes.</p><p>She could imagine what he had done to end up here. In all likelihood, he had supplied the opposition with resources or information. Perhaps he had written a controversial pamphlet or two. Something reckless and well-intentioned.</p><p>He was on his knees on the dirty floor, his arms chained loosely to the wall. There was blood on his ripped shirt, and a smear of it running down his face. A small splinter of glass stuck out of his cheek. A set of broken glasses lay on the ground in front of him. The golden chain they had been attached to was wound tightly around his throat.</p><p>She stood in front of him in her proper blue dress, her face clean, her hair put up neatly with an expensive barrette.</p><p>They looked at each other, a world apart.</p><p>His gaze drifted to the gauze in her hands. When he looked back up, he smiled.</p><p>She was empty until that moment. But when he smiled, her heart broke a little. Shame washed over her and she looked away, stepping closer to him and kneeling on the floor. She reached for the chain around his neck and patted it until she found the clasp. She undid it quietly, trying to keep her presence to a minimum. She was hardly even breathing. Once undone, she found where the chain attached to his jacket and undid that too before stuffing it into her pocket without a word.</p><p>She leaned back and looked him over. He hadn’t spoken yet, and she had the strange feeling that he was trying to do her a courtesy by keeping quiet. He was looking at her as though she were a small animal who he was trying not to spook.</p><p>Slightly confused by the energy in the room, Andromeda picked up his glasses and pulled out her wand. The first words she spoke were a simple spell.</p><p>“Oculus Reparo,” she whispered. </p><p>They watched the glasses knit itself back together. She put them down beside her again and reached for his face, tilting it up so she could take a better look at the glass splinter. He was straining to keep his eyes on her. His breath warmed the air between them. His skin was cold and sticky with drying blood.</p><p>She traced the line of her wand with her pointer finger for a moment before pointing it at his face and drawing out the glass with a few words. It fell to the ground with a soft tinkle. She kept her wand up and cast another spell. The wound on his cheek repaired itself, as well as some other scrapes and bruises along his jaw and eyes.</p><p>He was handsome. He had soft, sand-coloured hair that was starting to curl over his forehead He needed a haircut. His eyes were light, a grey or a blue, she thought, and he had a dappling of freckles along his nose.</p><p>The chains clanked as he shifted and she pulled back again, reaching for his glasses and carefully putting them back onto his face. She kept the chain in her pocket. After that, she took the bandages she had brought in and took care of the wound on his chest. She wasn’t sure what they had done to him to leave him with an injury like this – a bright red, gaping wound, closed with clotting blood. She cleaned it out as best as she could and wrapped a length of bandage around his chest. Once she was done, she took some of the dried meat and stuck the end into his mouth. He looked at her as he tore a piece off and chewed. She waited for him to finish before feeding him more. The next time she came down, she’d bring him some water.</p><p>She didn’t brush off her clothes when she got back to her feet. It seemed ridiculous.</p><p>Nothing about this man was different from the other six prisoners she had taken care of over the years. This was her part, and she would do it. But, for some reason, before she left the room, she hesitated. And when she did, he smiled at her again.</p><p>Her eyes filled with tears at the sight.</p><p><em>You’re wrong</em>, she wanted to say, <em>I’m no different from them. I’m just the same.</em></p><p>She didn’t say anything. Instead, she turned her back on him and left, locking the door behind her.</p><p>///</p><p>She wasn’t given an estimate as to how long they’d be keeping their guest in the cellar. Of course, that was in line with how things had always gone. No one was even supposed to mention their guest in the cellar while they were upstairs. <em>Just do your part. Quietly.</em></p><p>Bellatrix never adhered to that.</p><p>She came upstairs with their father, blood on her dress and underneath her finger nails, and happily told Andromeda that she was done for the day and that she expected their guest to be cleaned up and taken care of when she went back down later. Bellatrix preferred having their guests fixed up between visitations. She liked messing up the same pretty face every day, like a painter looking for a blank canvas.</p><p>They weren’t trying to obtain anything from their guest. Cygnus was training his oldest daughter in the art of persuasion, and their guest was merely a convenient test subject. If she went too far and killed him, there would be no valuable information lost with him. Just a soul.</p><p>Andromeda kept quiet. She took care of him in the early hours of the morning, when her sister and father were asleep. She fed him bread and plums and gave him sips of water and milk. She fixed his glasses. She wrapped his wounds. They still didn’t speak, and he had stopped smiling at her. That would have been a relief, if he hadn’t instead started to regard her with a kind of worried frown. Not concern with his own fate, but an empathetic kind of worry every time he caught sight of the hollowness in her gaze. It was as though he could see the invisible stones in her pockets. The noose around her neck.</p><p>She kept him in darkness, because she didn’t think she would be able to stand the full force of his gaze in the light.</p><p>She still knew nothing about him. Not his name. Where he came from. What he had done.</p><p>He never complained. He hardly even flinched when she touched his wounds and healed them. Sometimes, when she came down, he was crying, but that was all. The tears made her fingers slippery, but she preferred it to the blood. When she left, sometimes she was crying too.</p><p>Upstairs, her family was continuing their lives as usual. Her father went out on business. Bellatrix made enemies. Narcissa frolicked. Andromeda read her books.</p><p>Their mother was working to find them suitable partners. She’d had some trouble finding one for Bellatrix, so she had moved her attentions over to Narcissa instead. Narcissa would be the easiest to find a husband for out of the three of them. She was stunning and shrewd. Narcissa knew exactly how to charm and influence the people she met. To Andromeda, it was both a gift and a curse to know what lurked underneath that beautiful exterior. A gift, because her sister would never be able to trick her. A curse, because it would have been a comfort to believe that there was true good in her. </p><p>Narcissa was enjoying the whole process. The dinners, the dates, the letters, the attention. She would have dragged it out for months, if her mother hadn’t come up with the suggestion of one Lucius Malfoy. First son of the Malfoy estate. Only a year her senior. Handsome and clever, with the potential for a high-ranking position in the future government that they were secretly trying to bring about.</p><p>Andromeda was there the night they first met. They had a family dinner at the Black estate. The intimacy of such a meeting, instead of something more informal like meeting at a party out of house or in a ballroom, betrayed how serious both families already were about the arrangement. Narcissa felt it too, Andromeda thought, because she asked Andromeda to spend five hours helping her prepare for the night to her liking. She coiled up Narcissa’s beautiful blond hair in braids and pinned them to her head with silver clips imbedded with emeralds. Then, she sat beside her and handed her whatever cosmetic concoction she asked for. Narcissa’s concentration was absolute. She perfected herself.</p><p>That night, when the two singles first laid eyes on each other, Andromeda understood why. They looked flawless as they faced each other. Already, they looked like a set.</p><p>Something happened as their eyes met. Andromeda just missed it, she thought. In the first split-second that the two of them looked at each other, some connection was forged between them. A certain kind of understanding.</p><p>By the end of the night, all three sisters knew that Narcissa would marry Lucius Malfoy, even if their parents were still carefully considering the advantages and disadvantages of the match. That shared knowledge briefly brought the three of them back together. At night, they met in Narcissa’s room and sat on her bedsheets in their nightgowns, going over the night together. Bellatrix laughed too loudly, but their parents didn’t send a servant to break them up. They must have been just as content with the way the evening had gone.</p><p>Those hours with her sisters meant the first spark of joy that Andromeda had felt in several months. She revelled in it, and prayed to God that the fact that this was possible meant that one day, she would be happy.</p><p>Instead, it only made the emotional whiplash even rougher when her life took another downturn immediately afterwards.</p><p>The date for Narcissa and Lucius’ wedding was set for three months later. During the time when preparations were being made, Narcissa was an absolute nightmare. She put on airs, acting superior to both of her older sisters just on account of having a match made for her. She needed to control absolutely everything. All she wanted to talk about was her wedding and her future life. The only moments she shut up was when she was with Lucius, since she knew what her role would be as his wife, but that only spared her family for a couple of hours.</p><p>Andromeda could handle it, although she was disappointed. Bellatrix, however, did not do well with this kind of behaviour. She was set off by the slightest provocation and constantly irritated. She tormented the servants and drove their parents mad.</p><p>She almost killed their guest in the basement several times.</p><p>Andromeda was reduced to a quiet mouse, trying to control the damage. Bellatrix and their father started trying out water-based methods halfway through the first month in an effort to placate Bellatrix a little. As a result, their guest fell ill, catching a fever so high that it made him delirious. Andromeda spent three days in the basement taking care of him. Each day, her sister would arrive and inspect the scene. Andromeda just stared her down, and when Bellatrix realised that he was still ill, she’d scoff and leave in an angry fit.</p><p>It was during those days that she finally heard him speak.</p><p>He was scared. For weeks, he had taken anything her father and Bellatrix threw at him quietly. Although he had suffered, he had never expressed any kind of fear for his life. Now, however, when illness was starting to make him tear at the seams, he got nervous. He spoke to her. She assumed it was a way for him to make himself feel more closely connected to being alive.</p><p>“She’s your sister, right?” he said on the second day, after Bellatrix had left them. His voice was hoarse from disuse and Andromeda startled so much that she dropped her wand.</p><p>She stared at him, wide-eyed.</p><p>He was struggling to keep his eyes open. “She’s a real piece of work.”</p><p>She almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. He’d been quiet all this time, but now he addressed her as though they were standing at the side-lines of a ballroom somewhere, discussing the latest scandal one of their peers had gotten themselves into.</p><p>It was the last thing he said. Her blood cooled when she realised that disappointed her.</p><p>He got better. She felt bad for being relieved about that, since he would surely be better off in the next life than here. But he seemed relieved as well. Whatever the reason, their guest was not yet ready to die.</p><p>Still, those days had shaken her up. That, together with the fact that her mother was starting to come up with options for Andromeda’s future match in an effort to take her mind off of Narcissa’s wedding sometimes, made the darkness fall that much heavier each night.</p><p>She didn’t sleep anymore. From dusk until dawn, she lay awake in her bed, staring at the ceiling. She survived on little naps throughout the day. Her body protested with every effort she took. Staircases were a nightmare. Dinner with her family was torturous. She was nauseous all the time, her back ached, her eyes burned. Every morning it was harder to drag herself out of bed. The only thing that still made her do it was the kind-eyed man in the basement. He’d die without her. She knew that.</p><p>His worry deepened as she slipped further into emptiness. One morning, to the sound of the first birds, she was surprised by a dizzy spell and fell to the knees in front of him. Once she was down there, she saw no reason to get back up. She wanted nothing more than to lay down.</p><p>Their guest in the basement whispered to her. “Have you tried a patronus?”</p><p>She looked up to him, struggling to grasp the fact that he’d spoken again. “What?”</p><p>“A patronus,” he whispered again. His lips turned up into a small smile. “It can help. Have you tried it?”</p><p>Slowly, Andromeda shook her head.</p><p>When was the last time someone had tried to help her feel better? When was the last time anyone had cared how little she cared for being alive? Why was it this prisoner, who, by all accounts, should <em>hate</em> her?</p><p>Tears welled up in her eyes. “I don’t know how,” she whispered back.</p><p>His hands twitched, and she knew that he must be <em>itching</em> for his wand.</p><p>“Expecto Patronum,” he said, “And a happy memory.”</p><p>She smiled at him, then, an empty, hollow thing that made him flinch. Her prisoner’s empathy ran deep.</p><p>“I don’t have any of those anymore,” she told him.</p><p>He looked at her with heartbreak in his eyes. “Just find a spark of hope,” he gently coaxed her, “Just find one spark of hope.”</p><p>Hope?</p><p>The word felt foreign on her tongue. Yet she knew that she must have some left. Otherwise she wouldn’t be there anymore.</p><p>Hope.</p><p>She took the word upstairs with her when she left him that day. She tended to it throughout her day. She saw and heard it everywhere around her. Her family spoke it without thinking. Her books mentioned it every other page. It was such a beautiful word. She wondered how she’d never noticed it before.</p><p>At night, in the darkness of her room, she took out her wand.</p><p>She remembered the night they spent in Narcissa’s bedroom. She focused on what had made her happy then. What had made her hopeful? What had made her see potential in that night?</p><p><em>Peace</em>. What she had felt that night was the possibility of peace. No more violence. No more blood.</p><p>That is what she hoped for. That, someday soon, when they had won the war and taken the country, there would be no more prisoners in her basement. There would be no more torture and killing. <em>Peace</em>.</p><p>Emotion rose up inside of her, a wave of pure <em>want</em>. She clawed at her hope until she could almost see it take shape.</p><p>“Expecto Patronum,” she choked out, pointing her wand.</p><p>Light shot out of her wand like water from a spring. It poured itself out into the air and swirled into a small, recognisable shape.</p><p>She choked on a sound between a laugh and a sob when she saw it. The small, white dove flew up and floated in the air above her, looking her right in the eye.</p><p><em>Peace</em>. Yes.</p><p>She sank down to her bedroom floor and sobbed. Her patronus sat with her as she emptied herself of hopelessness. Once she was done, Andromeda finally fell asleep.</p><p>///</p><p>He might have been scared that she would die and leave him to his fate, she reasoned. But she didn’t really believe it.</p><p>The next morning, she went downstairs early. It was only half past five when she unlocked the door to his cell and let herself in. The prisoner came to slowly. He was still chained to the wall in the exact same position that she’d found him in weeks earlier. His glasses were in pieces again, and his breathing was laboured. Bellatrix must have broken some of his ribs again the night before.</p><p>She sank to her knees in front of him and repaired his wounds as he came to. His eyelids fluttered and he opened his eyes, squinting as he got used to the darkness again. He flinched away from her touch, but when he saw that it was her his shoulders sagged in relief. He smiled at her.</p><p>Andromeda smiled back.</p><p>His eyes widened and his smile fell for a moment, before coming back in full force. “Hello,” he stammered.</p><p>Had he been waiting for her to smile back all this time?</p><p>“Hello,” she replied, pointing her wand at his ribcage and speaking a spell to heal him.</p><p>He grunted as his bones reattached. “Thank you,” he whispered afterwards.</p><p>Shame flooded her.</p><p>“You shouldn’t thank me. I’m not actually helping you.”</p><p>“It sure does feel like it,” he countered, rolling his shoulders. He smiled at her again.</p><p>She shook her head. If it was a comfort to him to think of her as kind, then she wouldn’t take that from him. God knows that he had little comforts here.</p><p>She took out some fresh bread. It was still warm – their cook had only just finished preparing it when she came to ask for it. She blew on it before holding it to the prisoner’s lips.</p><p>He ate heartily, as far as that was possible. Seeing him enjoy the food filled her with satisfaction. This, at least, she could do for him. He didn’t have to live on dry bread and water as long as he was her responsibility.</p><p>He was munching thoughtfully and inspecting her face. After he swallowed, he nodded at her. “You look a little bit better.”</p><p>She couldn’t help but smile at his kindness. “I got a good night’s sleep.”</p><p>He hummed softly in understanding. “Good.”</p><p>There was longing in his eyes. How much did he want to have a good night’s rest? How long had it been since he slept in a bed? In a horizontal position, even?</p><p>She fixed a leftover bruise on his collarbone.</p><p>Perhaps she could keep him alive until they won their political arms’ race. She could release him after that. He could go home.</p><p>“Did you try the patronus?” he asked.</p><p>She nodded and glanced up at him.</p><p>“Did it work?” he pressed eagerly.</p><p>She nodded again, smiling, and lifted up her wand again. “Expecto Patronum.”</p><p>Her sweet little dove joined them in the cell. The prisoner squinted at the light. Andromeda watched his expressions as he took in the hopeful light in his cell. He breathed in deeply. His shoulders relaxed. A smile appeared around his lips. Another comfort.</p><p>“It’s beautiful,” he whispered.</p><p>She sat down more fully on the floor and wrapped her arms around her legs, watching the dove. “Yes.”</p><p>They watched the magic for a while, sitting side by side on the dirty cellar floor.</p><p>“I’m Ted,” he whispered finally.</p><p>“Andromeda,” she replied.</p><p>///</p><p>No one noticed when she started spending more time with Ted. They sat by the light of her patronus for hours, talking about their lives and interests. He had taken the fall for a friend of his, as it turned out. As she had expected, both said friend and Ted himself had been part of the opposing party trying to keep her parents’ benefactor from rising to political authority. His friend got away thanks to Ted’s sacrifice. Ted was content with that outcome. It got him through his darkest moments down here in the cell.</p><p>He was eerily understanding to Andromeda’s situation. Ashamed, she admitted to all of the luxuries provided to her. When he pressed, she confessed to the countless threats her parents subjected her to. <em>Without this family, you are nothing. If you do not do your part, you will be discarded. You will change nothing. You will simply disappear.</em> Her parents would kill her before they let her disobey them.</p><p>He told her about his parents. Ted was an only child. In return, she told him about his sisters. As it was, Druella Black had miraculously found someone suitable who was interested in a match with Bellatrix. It took some of the pressure off Andromeda again, and put Bellatrix in a far better mood. This meant nothing for Ted, of course. Happy or unhappy, Bellatrix habits were the same. But it made Andromeda’s life easier. She could sit with Ted in the cellar and read him poetry, praying that all of this would be over soon. Although Ted said he was alright with his life ending like this, since he’d saved his friend, she was starting to feel an intense desire to see him free again. Once Lord Marvolo was ruler, she was sure she could find a way to get him out. Once the violence had stopped.</p><p>She held on to that hope with both hands. She cast her patronus again and again, looking at her bird of peace, and praying for the day to come soon. No more violence. <em>Peace</em>.</p><p>But sometimes Ted looked at her with something she could only read as pity. He looked at her like he knew something that she didn’t, and she was desperate never to find out what it was.</p><p>Of course, she found out after all.</p><p>Two nights before Narcissa’s wedding, the three sisters spent the evening in each other’s company. Their father was out on business with Lord Malfoy, and their mother was making some last arrangements for the wedding out of town. She was meant to return the day after, right on time.</p><p>As was tradition when their parents were both out, the three girls lounged together in the reading room and discussed everything they could not with their parents in the house. Narcissa let them in on what exactly had already transpired between her and Lucius. It wasn’t anything too scandalous, to Andromeda’s relief and Bellatrix’ disappointment, but there had been a kiss here and there and a promise or two. He had already ordered the expensive coach that their parents had always refused to buy her. She was absolutely glowing with excitement and satisfaction. Bellatrix was much the same – although marriage had never really attracted her, she was thrilled at the possibility that the younger Lestrange son might be her match. He had a reputation for being ruthless and working with women as well as men. At his side, Bellatrix could fulfil her full potential, she thought.</p><p>That’s how Andromeda found out that her only spark of hope was a house of cards.</p><p>“I can’t wait until Lord Marvolo is in charge,” Bellatrix marvelled, her eyes glinting with a manic excitement, “We could finally take to the streets. I hate that we still have to sneak around when we’re trying to get information. How are people supposed to fear us if no one knows what exactly we do to people who keep secrets from us?”</p><p>Andromeda felt dread simmer up underneath her skin. The air felt heavier.</p><p>Narcissa scrunched up her nose. “Ugh, I can’t agree. I like that all of those disgusting matters take place behind closed doors. Seeing them out on the street would just ruin my mood.”</p><p>Bellatrix shook her head. “But, Cissa, I have so many <em>ideas</em>!” Her eyes glazed over and she got a dreamy smile around her lips. “Spikes in front of the government buildings with the heads of dissenters. Teaching what father has been teaching me to countless pupils. We could make a whole day out of it. Shows for the people on the Grand Plaza!”</p><p>Andromeda put her hand in front of her mouth and gagged.</p><p>Bellatrix rolled her eyes at her and Narcissa scoffed.</p><p>“Such a weak stomach,” Narcissa said.</p><p>“Weak <em>everything</em>,” Bellatrix bit out.</p><p>Andromeda didn’t hear them. She was thinking of her bird, and how she would never see it again.</p><p>///</p><p>She didn’t speak again for the rest of the night. It quickly ruined her sisters’ moods and the three of them dispersed. Andromeda went back to her room and closed the door behind her. She didn’t make it to her bed before her legs gave out. She stumbled down to the floor and stared off into the dark room around her.</p><p>Once Lord Marvolo came to power, none of the violence would stop. It would multiply. It would <em>spread</em>, like an illness. Her sister would run rampant on the streets. There would be no end to the bloodshed.</p><p>She took out her wand and clutched it in her hands so tightly that for a moment she feared the wood would snap. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to grasp at that string of hope that had held her upright in the past few weeks.</p><p><em>Peace</em>, she thought, but she saw her sister with her hands stained red.</p><p><em>Peace</em>, she thought, but she saw Ted in the basement, rows and rows of new cells implemented behind him, all full.</p><p><em>Peace</em>, she thought, and she saw Ted. His greasy sand-coloured hair. The intelligent eyes behind his glasses. His kind smile.</p><p><em>Peace</em>, she thought, and this time it sounded like a question.</p><p>If Lord Marvolo came to power, violence would spread. But he hadn’t come to power yet. Ted’s friends were making sure of that. Ted, who was locked inside of her cellar. The cellar she had the keys to.</p><p>Her parents had told her that leaving their house would get her killed. If not by others, than by they themselves. They would seek her out and eliminate her. Cut her out of their family like cancer.</p><p>But what if she wasn’t alone out there? And what if she was not the cancer?</p><p>She had information. Not much, but still. She knew things about her family’s business that outsiders did not. She had something to offer.</p><p><em>It’s crazy,</em> something inside of her said, but even as it did, she didn’t believe it.</p><p>
  <em>No. Everything before this was crazy. This is the first thing I’ve ever done that makes any sense.</em>
</p><p>By the time her father returned in the early hours of the morning, Andromeda was packed. She’d stuffed some essentials into a duffle bag she stole from the servants’ quarter and was waiting patiently for the sound of the door. She listened as her father’s footsteps travelled across their floor. The door to her parents’ bedroom closed behind him.</p><p>She counted down half an hour worth of minutes. Her father never took long to fall asleep.</p><p>Andromeda looked out of her bedroom window. The sun was coming up in the distance, staining the night sky a light grey. It was foggy. When she touched her fingers to the glass, they came away wet.</p><p>Her heart was beating fast with excitement. She listened to the first birds of the morning starting their song.</p><p>When she was sure the house was quiet, she went down into the cellar, like every day.</p><p>Ted looked up when she stepped into the room. He was already awake. “Good morning.”</p><p>Andromeda looked at him with something close to awe. How had he taught her so much in such a short span of time? How had he even survived this long?</p><p>She rushed towards him with her keys in hand and grabbed onto the chains holding him.</p><p>“What are you-”</p><p>He stared at her slack-jawed as the first chain fell to the floor in a loud, clanking heap. Andromeda turned to the other.</p><p>“Andromeda, you <em>can’t</em>,” he stammered, sounding scared, “They’ll <em>kill</em> you.”</p><p>“Not if they can’t find me,” she responded, and the second chain fell. She turned to his feet.</p><p>“What? Where do you mean to go?”</p><p>She glanced up at him briefly. “With you, if you’ll let me.”</p><p>He sputtered something unintelligible which lead into something of a manic chuckle. “You’re serious?”</p><p>“If you’ll let me,” she repeated. The last of his chains fell away.</p><p>Ted was rubbing his wrists in disbelief. She gently took him by the arms and helped him up. He let her.</p><p>“Oh God,” he whispered. He looked at her. Now he was standing, he was a little taller than her.</p><p>She blushed, but kept her gaze locked with his. She’d made up her mind.</p><p>He stared at her for half a minute. Whatever he was looking for in her expression, he eventually found. “Alright,” he stammered, “Alright. I know a place we can go. I can send a message. Someone can come pick us up.”</p><p>“Perfect,” she said. She pulled him towards the door. Thanks to her daily regimen of food and healing, he had kept up his strength. Soon, they were out in the cellar. Up the staircase. In the hall.</p><p>Ted hesitated before he stepped out into the morning air. Andromeda was in front of him, leading him by the hand. She looked back at him nervously. They couldn’t linger here. But- She couldn’t deny him a moment of real conscious awareness as he stepped outside for the first time in months. She owed him so much more than that.</p><p>Ted took a deep lungful of fresh air and stepped out beside her onto the patio. He squeezed her hand. “Alright,” he said again, “Alright.”</p><p>Together, the two of them rushed into the morning light. Andromeda thought she could see her hope-called bird flying beside them on the wind.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I hope you enjoyed this!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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